Book Cover

Part OneDue: End of class, Thursday, May 22No submission requiredDuration: 8 days

Part TwoDue: End of class, Thursday, June 5Final submissionTotal duration: 15 days

Overview

For this project we'll each be selecting a book from the WCC Bailey Library and giving it a new cover in Photoshop.

Additionally, we'll be putting the results into a real-world setting in the form of mocked-up screenshots of major online retailers.

Part One

The first part of the process will involve selecting your book from the library, researching the variety of ways the cover has been treating in previous iterations and working in Photoshop to build a brand-new cover.

Book Selection

Research

Cover Design

Conversion

Part Two

The second part will be the compositing of the final design into screenshots of online marketplaces suck as the Google Play store, Apple's iBooks store and Audible.com.

Screenshot Mock-ups

File Output (web-ready)

Class Folder Submission

Blog Submission

1. Book Selection

The book must be chosen from the existing in-stock selection and include the following pieces of written content (to be faithfully recreated in the new version):

Complete Title

Author Name

Each student must document the book with a photograph for documentation purposes. The quality of the photo is not important.

2. Research

Each student will compile a collection of existing cover versions (via Google image search) in an effort to avoid cliche's and common imagery already associated with the publication's previous iterations.

Document setup specs

3. Cover Design

We are recreating the front cover only, not the spine or back cover.

The document size will be determined by the size of the reference book.

In other words, each student will measuretheir reference book and set up a Photoshop document in the same size with the following specifications.

RGB color space

300 dpi

The reference book's complete title must be incorporated verbatim as well as the book's author name. Photoshop's native type tools must be used for the written content.

Imagery for this project may be generated any way you choose. A selection of acceptable methods include:

Digital Photograph

Stock Photography

Scanned Imagery

Photoshop Drawing Tools

Wacom Tablet

4. Conversion

After the cover is designed at the proper aspect ratio, the cover will then be rebuilt in a square aspect ratio.

This is an effort to prepare the book for Part Two, the final output. Instructions coming next week.

Notes

File Management

Below is a suggested folder structure for managing the files produced during this project.

Research

Cover Drafts

Mock-ups

Submission

Misc

Objectives

Promote general image-finding resourcefulness

To impose a new artistic vision onto a pre-existing composition

Provide an entry point into working with typography in Photoshop

Sharpen problem solving in the face of new challenges

Encourage thought about contemporary book marketplaces

To understand the importance of visual context

Submission

Submit the following files (as well as any other files generated during the life of the project) to the Class Folders as mentioned on the Policies page. Submit a web-ready jpg of the mock-up to the Class Blog.